The Passivhaus standard is a tried and tested ‘fabric first’ methodology that slashes energy use from buildings and delivers high standards of comfort and health. Monitoring of thousands of Passivhaus buildings proves that energy use, on average, is extremely close to the amount that the modelling predicts. By contrast, in an average new home heating demand can be 60% more than forecast using SAP modelling. The Passivhaus standard delivers buildings that perform as designed, effectively eliminating the ‘performance gap’.

It is that building performance ‘super power’ that is making Scottish local authorities embrace Passivhaus for their newbuild school programmes. This has been massively spurred on by a simple but impactful change to the funding criteria established two years ago for the Scottish Government`s Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP).